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Friday, July 25, 2014

The stench of western hypocrisy is becoming hard to ignore

Another day, more western endorsed Gazan deaths. "Self defense", "Rockets", and "Human shields" are really getting old fast in terms of the excuses Israel is using to justify it's slaughter, and it is a slaughter, of what you must remember is a very very tiny occupied land. There is no where for these people to go. From Wikipedia...

Gaza has an annual population growth rate of 2.91% (2014 est.), the 13th highest in the world, and is overcrowded.[4][5]There is a limited capability to construct new homes and facilities for this growth. The territory is 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and from 6 to 12 kilometers (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 365 square kilometers (141 sq mi).[6] As of 2014, the population of the Gaza Strip was about 1.82 million people.[5]The large Palestinian refugee population makes it among the most densely populated parts of the world.[7]

The EU Ambassador to Israel has warned that a growing number of EU states are dissuading their citizens from doing business with companies registered in Israeli settlements; France, Italy and Spain have already joined the trend. Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen told a business seminar organized by the Geneva Initiative on Friday that six European nations have already issued warnings to the Israeli government over expanding construction of settlements beyond the Green Line.

EU member states “are losing their patience with concerns not being treated [seriously]," by Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen said.

"The EU is more consistently implementing existing policy, and taking further steps to disengage from the settlements," said the ambassador, and warned that in case settlement construction does not stop, even more EU member states will issue an advisory not to do business with business in the settlements.

The governments of five of the largest EU economies: Germany, France, Italy and Spain, UK, as well as the Netherlands have urged businessmen nationwide to stop investing into Israeli settlements in eastern Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the West Bank. The international community regards all Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land as illegal.

It's really, really, simple folks. You can not be engaged in what is clearly an act of aggression, in violation of international law, of a people you oppress and then cry every time they attack you. That's what oppressed people do, survival is a powerful motivator.

In April, Mr. Harper spoke out again: “When a major power acts in a way that is so clearly aggressive, militaristic and imperialistic, this represents a significant threat to the peace and stability of the world, and it’s time we all recognized the depth and the seriousness of that threat.” All nations had to be rallied “to understand that peace and stability is being threatened here in a way that has not been threatened since the end of the Cold War.”

From the outset Mr. Harper declared the presence of Russian troops in Crimea to be an “illegal military occupation” and said Canada would refuse to recognize the forthcoming referendum that Mr. Putin used to “legitimize” its seizure. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird chimed in to call the upcoming referendum “a Soviet-style tactic that’s unacceptable for a G8 country…” So it was.

Of course he wasn't talking about Israel, he was talking about the Ukraine. We're going to look more at the Ukraine in a bit.

Sure, Hamas is firing rockets aimlessly at civilian populations and "from" civilian areas (because all of Gaza is one overpopulated civilian area, duh). Those rockets are really all they have and they're rockets, not missiles, they don't have guidance systems. It's a point, shoot, and pray it hits something system. They're under a blockade and systematic isolation. You can not deny a people the right to have an army and then complain when they are forced to use Guerilla tactics, survival is a powerful motivator.

"Self defense" and the justification of dead children
Let's say for the sake of argument that Israel's "self defense" excuse were accurate (as in they were not actually occupying the land they're defending), it's being used as the reasonable justification for bombing civilians. Fine. But wait, just 1 year ago I remember another country that was under attack by foreign terrorists that was claiming self-defense in it's military campaign of "bombing their own civilians". That country was Syria. Let's check in with them...

But as the rockets and bombs fall, a deadlier war next door rolls on. The Syrian civil war has claimed 170,000 lives in three years; this past weekend's death toll in Syria was greater than what took place in Gaza. By some accounts, the past week may have been the deadliest in the conflict's grim history. Meanwhile, the extremist insurgents of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), have continued their ravages over a swath of territory stretching from eastern Syria to the environs of Baghdad, Iraq's capital; the spike in violence in Iraq has led to more than 5,500 civilian deaths in the first six months of this year.

Over the weekend, Islamic State militants battled forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over a gas field in central Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 700 people have died in just two days of fighting, including employees working at the facility.

So basically, what western nations are saying, is that Israel is completely justified to kill as many civilians as they need to "defend themselves" from rocket attacks but Assad has no right to defend himself in the same capacity from what is turning out to be a very brutal, violent, western backed, terrorist force.

According to Israel, everything about Gaza is "terror". They don't just build tunnels, they build "terror tunnels". Targets are "terrorist sites". The defending army are not soldiers, they're terrorists, thus not being awarded the international luxury of an "enemy combatant". Less than human. Their obvious usage of traditional military-grade propaganda to dehumanize the enemy has been working in overdrive. Meme after meme, cartoon after cartoon, contextless stat after contextless stat pours out of the IDF in a desperate attempt to win public opinion in favour of their slaughter. But bad vector art of hospitals they'd like to bomb don't prove anything in the face of the pictures of dead children and the interesting little details that leak out.

According to Alex Fishman, a military analyst writing in Yedioth Ahronoth: "The tanks, which serve as the heart of the assault force, received an order to open fire at anything that moved. The area and the targets are due to be seized by the morning hours. From here on, [the army] will start to clear the ground, in what could last for several days, depending on political developments."

And then there’s the now deleted tweet from CNN’s Diana Magnay observing Israelis cheering as bombs rained down on Gaza: “Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong.’ Scum.” (CNN pulled her off the Gaza beat as a result).

SDEROT, Israel — The women and children trudge up the dusty hill between dusk and sunset, some with dogs. The men stay long after dark, some with binoculars. It is the closest thing to a front-row seat for the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip, short of combat. Better than being stuck in a safe room somewhere watching those talking heads on television.

Overhead, they can see Israeli drones and planes beaming light onto the darkened battlefield. Below, across the road, Israeli tanks and troops are staging for entry. Beyond, an orange glow — could that be Shejaiya, the Gaza City neighborhood where fighting has raged for three days? No, too far north: Probably Beit Hanoun, the border town that has faced intense artillery shelling since the invasion began.

Suddenly, shouts of “Ooh, ooh!” and everyone pointed up at two rockets soaring from Gaza into Israel about 9 p.m. on Tuesday. “Jerusalem,” a veteran hill-watcher said knowingly. They checked the Red Alert apps on their cellphones: Turns out it was Gedera, a town closer to the coast. When the Iron Dome system intercepted it, applause came from the crowd of perhaps 50.

“It’s like we’ve been having a very bad toothache with a pain that’s been accumulating for years,” said Shmuel Dahan, 51, a gardener who lives near the hill. “And we want to come and see the tooth being taken out.”

It should be a pretty key indicator when you see how hard Israel is working to keep popular opinion on it's side that there is likely a reason for that. Israel is never going to be peaceful. Peace doesn't buy you $3 Billion annually in military aid.

Despite President Vladimir Putin's personal sympathy for Israel, which has remained neutral in the ongoing struggle between Russia and the West over Ukraine, Russia cannot openly support it in the Arab-Israeli conflict because of its other commitments in the region, analysts said.

And a few weeks prior to that China's president visited South Korea in what western media dubbed 'a snub to the North', at least until we heard what he had to say.

SEOUL — China’s visiting president, Xi Jinping, reminded South Koreans on Friday that their two countries had fought “shoulder to shoulder” against Japan more than four centuries ago, underscoring what analysts have called the main goal of his first official visit to the country: drawing South Korea away from Japan and the United States.

It should be no surprise these alliances are forming at the same time the BRICs announce their development bank intended to take on the U.S. dollar's primary reserve currency status.

The stench of western hypocrisy is becoming hard to ignore and sooner, rather than later, the world's going to be saying "that's enough of this shit".

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for eQube gaming systems.

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.